Audio Market Profile: Mathew Lane

In the second of of our series profiling the companies on our Audio Market page where we offer smaller developers the opportunity to reach the Pro Tools community at a much lower price, we turn our attention to Mathew Lane. We chatted to Mathijs Indesteege aka Mathew Lane who is the one man from this one man band.

PTE: How did you start? Tell us about your journey to setting up your company.

Mathew: On a certain mix I had to master several years ago, I found some serious mono compatibility issues. They couldn't go back to mix stage and really needed a solution. I do like a challenge like that and it made me thinking how I could address this problem. After a few nights of reflection, I figured out a theoretical process that might work on this mix. To get it done in practise, I used Cycling 74's MAX/MSP software, which at the time even allowed to export your process as VST/AU/RTAS plugin using the Pluggo system. This allowed for quick development of a prototype and the possibility to use this first version immediately inside my DAW on the actual session. It turned out to be working the way I imagined: it did fix that mix.

After that, I developed and expanded the Pluggo version further, which I then started to sell back in summer 2008. This was the start of Mathew Lane as a plug- in company.

When the Pluggo system got discontinued I needed to rebuild DrMS so it could support all the different and updated plug-in formats. Thanks to the support of all the early Pluggo DrMS buyers, I saved enough funds to hire programmers to work on these new developments, as I could never have done it just by myself. This resulted in the release of DrMS v3, which was a big step: it was not just rebuild but also improved in many ways and since then we have continued to update and improve DrMS.

PTE: Tell us a bit about your company and the products you produce?

Mathew: My philosophy is to create innovative new solutions when no other hardware or software could be found suitable for the task. This means I won't release a huge number of products, as there are many creative developers in the audio business releasing excellent products already. I don't personally see the use in doing something that somebody else has done very well already.

DrMS, is my only product at the moment and it is a unique spatial processor, available as AAX/RTAS/AU/VST plug-in, with a wide range of applications for mixing, mastering and post production - going from simple MS (Mid-Side) encoding/decoding, over stereo field width and depth enhancement, to fixing mono compatibility issues and more. It has become widely accepted by audio engineers as a unique plug-in, and is being used by top producers and engineers on songs by well known artists, including worldwide hits :-)

PTE: What challenges are you facing at the moment?

Mathew: DrMS still is relatively unknown compared to plug-ins from well known companies, so there's quite some work to be done in that field. Thanks to ProTools Expert for helping out with this!

PTE: What plans do you have for the future that you can share with the community?

Mathew: I'm often asked when my next plug-in will be released, but since I work from my personal need for a tool that isn't out there yet, it's a different kind of development. The good news is I definitely have some ideas cooking at the moment that hopefully can be released next year!

PTE: What is your favourite audio tool (excluding any of your own products)?

Mathew: In hardware, it would be the Crane Song IBIS EQ, I couldn't do without it! In software, I love the SSL Duende Channelstrip when mixing/producing, it's so flexible and sounds great.

PTE: What one thing gets you annoyed about the audio business?

Mathew: There seems to be a bigger focus on emulation then innovation. While I understand the appeal and value of recreations of well known classic hardware, imagine what would be possible if all these efforts went into creating truly new things!

PTE: Anything else you would like to share with the Pro Tools Expert community.

I guess that's it for now :-)

PTE: Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts and plans with the community.

If you would know more about Mathew Lane's DrMS plug-in then you can visit his site here. You can also watch Mike Thornton's show and tell review. As Mike said at the time The DrMS Spatial Processor from Mathew Lane falls into the category of "There Is Nothing Else Like It" and its developer Mathew Lane has developed the whole idea of MS processing to another level. In this Show & Tell Review Mike takes a tour of this unique plug-in and finds out what it can do.

Remember to visit the Audio Market page and support all the small developers, all trying to punch above their weight.